Obama Releases McCain "Keating V" Documentary

Sen. Barack Obama is fighting back against McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's personal attacks against him. Sunday night he released a web video to supporters, criticizing his role in the "Keating V" scandal. The difference: Obama's ads and attack are true...and related to Mcain's political record.

The short video, being e-mailed to millions of Obama supporters, summarizes a 13-minute Web "documentary" that the campaign plans to distribute Monday, spokesman Tommy Vietor said. He said McCain's involvement with convicted thrift owner Charles Keating "is a window into McCain's economic past, present and future."

Here's a little history of the Keating V and McCain from an Arizona paper. You can watch the full 13 minute version here beginning at noon ET Monday. [More...]

From the Keatingeconomics site:

The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.

At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.

When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.

The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.
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[McCain] had adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent.

Keating was no ordinary constituent to McCain.

On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.

The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.

McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.

When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself.

"You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating.

"That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?"

He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.

NYT article detailing McCain's political history? [Same article from which a reader could infer McCain and a female telecomm lobbyist were having an affair.] After reading the article I concluded McCain was not really involved in Keating Five, as he only received a reprimand from the Senate and was not charged criminally.

But McCain had deeper personal ties that the others. He was the guys friend and accepted free trips, etc. Only after the scandal broke did he pay the guy back and the only reason he wasnt investigated for that was his switch from House to Sentate. Each body claimed the other was responsible for checking into it.

He was admonished by the Senate for poor judgement and he himself said, "it was the greatest mistake of my life".

wonder how much sense it makes to bring up what was essentially a Democratic scandal. I honestly don't remember much about it, and my fingers keeps me from wiki-ing it. Is there any evidence that McCain's role was much worse than the others? If not, it seems as though it could backfire, especially given Barney Frank's role (and I love Barney Frank) in apparently helping to ignore known problems with Fannie Mae.

You hit on an excellent point that no one here seems to be picking up on, or getting upset about. The Fannie May and Freddie Mac problems are at the center of the financial problems on Wall Street. Over the years they grew their portfolios with sub-prime loans, to where almost half of their portfolio's were sub-prime. Fannie and Freddie would bundle up their loans (MSB'S) MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES, and sell them. Companies bought these up as investments thinking they were secure investments backed by GSE's ( government secured entitities). When in fact a high percentage of the loans these investors were buying were sub-prime (ie, people with bad, or no credit) loans. It gets worse. As early as 2003 the secretary of commerce tried to get congress to put more regulation and oversight on Fannie/Freddie to lessen their risk in sub-prime loans. The senate committee chaired by a Democrat-Barney Frank essential said Fannie/Freddie are fine and no action was taken. In 2004 a GAO audit of Fannie turned up serious violations stating that Fannie was overstating its revenues, and understating its losses, and sub-prime exposure. The republicans in the senate-including McCain introduced legislation calling for stricter regulation and oversight of both Fannie/Freddie. It went to a vote that basically went along party lines,republicans voted for it, and democrats having the majority voted against it and it was defeated. Now, I know the democrats didn't reject legislation for stricter regulaton because they wanted to destroy our financial markets. It was probably because they favored the GSE's taking these sub-prime loans because it helped get people into houses. However, at some point there needs to be a balance between political agenda/policy, and whats best for the country as a whole. In this case our elected officials let us down big time

They ran some ads about Rezko with little to no impact on voters because it wasn't an all out media blitz.

The McCain campaign played their hand a bit early by revealing that they were about to launch sludge all over the place, so it allows for an all out counter-assault like this to deluge the media and push out their message.

in reasonably objective sources. Dem.-controlled Congress, four Democrats deeply involved with Keating, McCain the least involved, and the general consensus is that McCain was roped in by the committee so it wouldn't be all Dems in the scandal. And sure enough, it's stuck to McCain but not the others.

There are precious few pols who can resist hanging out with the Keatings and Ken Lays, etc., of the world. Bernie Sanders is probably the only one who it would be safe to say doesn't.

It's disgraceful, but it's hardly unique to McCain. I'm sorry to see the Obama camp doing this. It's hardly "new politics," it's the same old same old.

McCain and Glen were in the final category. There were additional reasons to investigate McCain because of his close personal ties to Keating, and his free trips, but the Senate and House split over the jurisdiction.

Jerelyn, that was my comment you deleted, and what I "tried" on your site was to say something in response to your own assessment in the body of your blog entry that said that the difference between McCain's ads and Obamas is that Obama's ads are true. As you must know, both campaigns have been making misleading ads -- that's been reported and backed up often.

My posts are deleted these days when they merely disagree with points the co-hosts make.

Sad. It has made me think twice about my feeling for 50+ years that Dems don't quash dissent the way Repubs do.

I realize this could be deleted too, but I'm keeping a log since there is no reason for people like me to feel so unwelcome here, as to be accused of "try"ing something on your site which was merely to differ with you.

This sort of baby slapping avoids the real issues at stake. No doubt, Mccain is openly embracing the Muslim charges against Obama, which cannot be perceived as anything other than prejudicial racism. SO WHAT!? Isn't this a free country or not? Why is it such a big deal even if he is Muslim? Mccain and Palin are trying to paint him as a terrorist, just because they are convinced that he is Muslim. These idiots are quick to connect him to his former Christian pastor Jeremiah Wright, and then simultanteously slide over to charge him with the fallacious accusation of being Muslim. This is a serious disjunction in the thought patterns of many racist Americans. It's unbelievable.
Anyways... Obama's professionalism transcends any politician this year... it's clear, because he ended up on top of a two year long presidential race. He will NOT be brought down to Mccain/Palin's level. They will not win because of their inability to connect with the real DIVERSE American population that many Americans pick up arms and fight for.